U.S. Troops Battle Afghan Gunmen

A car bomb exploded outside a United Nations office in Kandahar on Tuesday as U.S. troops pressed a new campaign against militants.

The explosion, in Kandahar's upscale residential area of Shehr-e-Nau, occurred in a parked in front of a home being used as a workplace by the U.N. Office Project Support, said Siddiqullah, an Afghan who is in charge of humanitarian operations for the United Nations in southern Afghanistan.

The blast, which occurred minutes after U.N. employees left the building at the end of their work day, smashed a front gate, cracked walls in the building and broke its windows, said Siddiqullah, who like many Afghans only uses one name.

A man driving by on a motorcycle was wounded by the blast, said Siddiqullah.

It was unclear who had parked the car in front of the building, and there was no immediate claim of responsibility.

Kandahar is a former stronghold of the Taliban militia which ruled most of Afghanistan before it was driven out of power by a U.S.-led invasion and replaced by an Afghan government supported by the coalition.

The Taliban have been blamed for other attacks in Kandahar since losing power, and its supporters often fight there with Afghan security forces and coalition troops.

President Hamid Karzai's Kabul-based government, installed after the Taliban's ouster, wields limited influence outside the capital.

Parts of the north are controlled by rival warlords who back the government only nominally. In the south, Taliban insurgents have stepped up attacks in recent months against coalition and government forces.

That is the reason for Operation Mountain Resolve, launched Friday in the eastern provinces of Nuristan and Kunar with an airdrop by the 10th Mountain Division, apparently targeting elements of a network of insurgents including al Qaeda, the Taliban and forces loyal to renegade warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. Coalition troops are operating alongside Afghan militia.

Hekmatyar, a former prime minister, has called for a jihad, or holy war, against foreign troops in Afghanistan, but so far has eluded U.S. efforts to arrest or kill him. On Monday, he issued a statement saying that attacks by his supporters will not stop until the U.S.-led coalition and its "puppet government" withdraw from Afghanistan.

A specific goal of Operation Mountain Resolve is to destroy anti-coalition elements and disrupt their ability to operate or seek sanctuary in an area of eastern Afghanistan that is about 95 miles northeast of Kabul.

Coalition forces also aim to gather intelligence on insurgents, he said.

In the first clash of Operation Mountain Resolve, coalition ground forces engaged in a firefight with six enemy personnel near Marzah in Nuristan province on Monday morning, Davis said. The coalition forces killed one person and three others fled the area. Davis wouldn't say what happened to the other two.

That afternoon, coalition forces clashed with two or three enemy fighters armed with small weapons and machine guns in Marzah and called in helicopter gunships whose support helped force the enemy to retreat, Davis said. No casualties were reported on either side. He said the harsh mountainous terrain, where some areas already are covered with snow, made the fighting very difficult.

Preparations for the attack began Nov. 4, U.S. military spokesman Col. Rodney Davis said.

"It is the most dangerous terrain we have operated in since we've been in Afghanistan," Davis said. U.S. helicopter gunships were called in to help the coalition forces in one of the firefights.

Coalition forces suffered no casualties during the engagements on Monday, Davis said at a news conference at Bagram Air Base north of Kabul, the Afghan capital. He did not say if there was any fighting Tuesday.

In a separate battle, unrelated to the anti-terror operation, a coalition patrol clashed with six enemy soldiers in southern Afghanistan on Monday near Margah, Paktika province, killing one and capturing two. The three others retreated toward the Pakistan border, Davis said. No coalition forces were hurt.

The Bush administration is dispatching three envoys to assure Afghan officials their country will not be shoved aside in the rush to stabilize postwar Iraq, even though Afghanistan is getting a much smaller share of the billions in reconstruction aid destined for the two countries.

Iraq got $18.6 billion for rebuilding, but Afghanistan was allocated only $1.2 billion even though, as The Economist newsmagazine said this week, "Afghanistan has more people, more pressing needs and fewer resources of its own." Afghanistan has roughly 3.5 million more people than Iraq with no natural resources to rival Iraq's huge oil reserves.

Afghan foreign minister Abdullah, who, like many Afghans uses one name, said Monday the United States does not have the luxury of leaving unfinished what it started when it overthrew the Taliban government in late 2001.

"Now is not the time to walk away from the reconstruction effort," Abdullah said. "We need your help as the lead coalition partner to accelerate the successes we have achieved and build on them."